The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company around midday resumed internet operations following a complete loss of service earlier this morning.
The problem was described as being a cut along the Suriname-Guyana Submarine Cable (SGSC) located 277 km off the Guyanese shore. GT&T’s public relations officer, Nadia De Abreu, told Stabroek News that services had been completely down since 7:00hrs while internal servers detected a system failure at 5:10hr.
GT&T currently has a team of local engineers and technicians assessing the problem on the ocean floor along with an international team which comprises engineers from the Suriname telecommunications company Telesur. The extent of the damage is not yet know, nor the cost to GT&T due to system downtime.
Simultaneously while the SGSC has failed, Suriname has reported that the backup Americas 11 cable is also experiencing failures. This backup is what GT&T would have relied on.
GT&T this afternoon issued the following release:
PRESS RELEASE
Disruption of Suriname Guyana Submarine Cable System affects GT&T customers
GT&T apologizes to its customers for the disruption to its services during the course of November 6, 2013 due to a marine disruption to the Suriname Guyana Submarine Cable System (SGSCS) 277 km off the Guyana shore.
The disruption resulted in customers experiencing intermittent failure in all International Traffic and Internet during the day. The damage also affected the main fibre optic path out of Guyana.
Local and International technical teams continue to work to ensure full restoration to the network.
GT&T regrets the adverse effects caused by the disruption of our services due to the damage to the Suriname Guyana Submarine Cable System (SGSCS).
